PETE SEEGER'S LEGACY A SAILOR'S APPRECIATION

"What can a song do? What can a sailboat do? Some would say music exists just to soothe or distract people from their troubles. Some say sailboats are just rich men’s toys. Wrong, wrong. In the summer of 1969 they helped to start cleaning up a river." -Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger passed away earlier this week at the age of 94. I think of him often when I take BIANKA sailing on the Hudson River. Usually it might for a just few days to spend some time enjoying one of my favorite anchorages near Hook Mountain. But, I have also taken my boat on up the river all the way up to Albany when I sailed my boat into Canada for a Nonsuch Rendezvous back in 2002. To me Pete Seeger's legacy will always be his efforts to raise awareness and money in efforts to clean up the Hudson through his help in founding  of the Clearwater organization in 1966. The efforts of he and others have paid off so much that the Hudson River known as  America's River because of it's place in history is considerably cleaner today than it was just a short time ago. So much so that people including me can once again swim in it's refreshing waters.  One of his major efforts was helping to raise money to build the CLEARWATER a 106 foot gaff rigged replica of a Hudson River sloop. The type of sailing vessel  that plied the Hudson in the 1800's. I often come across it sailing in my cruises to New York and elsewhere.

I'm sure that like the Hudson River every time I see the CLEARWATER from now on from the cockpit of BIANKA I'll always remember Pete Seeger and the efforts of he and others in helping to clean up one of America's most beautiful waterways and start singing one of Pete Seeger's tunes about the Hudson River.

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How Can I Keep from Singing?: The Ballad of Pete Seeger

My Dirty Stream (The Hudson River Song)

Sailing Down My Golden River

SONGS FOR SAILING: Albatross

I've come upon a new song to add to BIANKA's MP3 player category of songs for sailing. I usually don't play music while under sail since I prefer the natural sounds of the water and nature. At anchor or while working on the boat over the winter it's nice to have a little nautical tune on the boom box. I don't know how I came upon it but, Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green composition  Albatross seems perfect for lazing in the cockpit on a starry night, laying on a coat of varnish or breezing along at four or five knots.

SONGS FOR SAILORS: High and Dry: Gordon Lightfoot

I went down to the boatyard to do one of my off season checks on the boat and there was BIANKA  high and dry patiently waiting for spring on the jackstands:

As I saw here there a Gordon Lightfoot song popped into my head called High And Dry from the 1970's album called Sundown.  It was an album I use to listen to when I was in High School which was a couple of years before I took up sailing. As the song played in my head I thought yeah this lament for a boat or a girl deserves a spot on my MP3 player:

With a lady-like devotion

She sails the bitter ocean

If it wasn't for lovesick sailors

There'd be nothin' left but flotsam

Singin' why me oh my

Is there a better man than I

I hope you find your way back home

Before you're lyin' high and dry

I hope you find your way back home

Before you die 

Though I'm having trouble deciding between two versions of the song there is the original High And Dry from the Sundown album. Then there is the High And Dry [1988 Version] from Gord's Gold Volume II. I just might have download both versions.

SONGS FOR SAILING: Pata Pata

I was reminded today that it is Miriam Makeba's  81st birthday and thought why yes her hit from the 1960's Pata Pata  would make a great addition to the MP3 music collection on BIANKA.

ANOTHER MAGICAL EVENING

 I was a little bummed as I finished cooking some Chicken Tika Marsala for which I forget to buy some cream to finish it off so I had to use non fat milk instead.  Oh well. As I sat down in the cockpit to enjoy it along with a nice glass of red wine, I heard from across the channel the channel the jolly sound of a Concertina  being played. The delightful sound of sea shanties one after another were drifting across the water in the still night air providing me with great joy as I dined. The sound was coming from a raft up of two boats where some people were enjoying themselves sans electronics. It reminded me of a recent book I had read of a journey along the New England coast in the 1840's. The author described being at anchor somewhere in New England and hearing the singing and playing of Sea Shanties coming from one of the other ships in the harbor. For me it's was one of those special evenings that elude those on land or get off their boats after a short day sail. It also made me imagine what it must have been like that evening in that harbor in New England back in the 1840'S. Just another magical evening on board the BIANKA.

SONGS OF A SAILOR: VAHEVALA

For some reason the song VAHEVALA by Loggins and Messina popped into my head yesterday. It got me thinking why don't I have that on my IPOD shuffle to have in my sailing mix. Why not indeed? And while I'm at it how about Sailin' The wind too!

NOW WESTLIN' WINDS

New Years Eve and the playing of Auld Lang Syne got me thinking of  Robert Burns.  Jesse Ferguson aka the Bard of Cornwall does a nice rendition of a Robert Burns poem that sounds like it would make for nice listening after dinner while kicking back in the cockpit to watch the stars at some nice little anchorage :